1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the printing of digital images recorded by a digital camera.
2. Related Art
The advent of digital photography has sparked a revolution. With digital photography there is no need to buy or process film because images are stored digitally. Advantageously, the memory capacity of most digital cameras (or memory cards associated therewith) allows a larger number of images to be taken and stored at one time than with photographic film. Additionally, images can usually be viewed immediately on a small LCD viewscreen associated with the camera, rather than taking multiple images and waiting for film to be developed to determine which images are most desired. Unwanted images can simply be erased and never printed. Moreover, digital images can be electronically manipulated or augmented before printing, such as removing unwanted visual features or flaws, adding text or other images or graphics, combining images, or arranging multiple images for printing on a common substrate. Finally, producing hard copy photo prints is much simpler and easier. Whereas photographic film must be chemically processed at a photo lab, digital photos can be printed with common computer printers, such as ink jet printers.
These developments have produced a quantum leap in the flexibility, efficiency, ease, and simplicity of photography. It is estimated that fully 30% of U.S. households currently have and use digital photographic equipment, and that proportion is continually rising.
One challenge still presented by digital photography is the convenience of printing systems. Systems have been developed for printing images recorded by digital cameras. For example, personal computers (PC's) with attached printers are frequently used for printing digital photographic images. However, many of these systems are cumbersome and awkward to use, and present control limitations which can reduce the ease and convenience that digital photography promises. It would therefore be advantageous to develop an economical and portable system for producing photographic prints from images recorded by digital cameras. It would also be desirable to have such a system that is easy to operate and control, and which adds to the ease and convenience of using digital cameras.